feeding frenzyn.
/ˈfiːdɪŋ ˌfrɛnzi/, U.S. /ˈfidɪŋ ˌfrɛnzi/ 1. An aggressive and competitive group attack on prey by a number of sharks, during which members of the feeding group may also be attacked. In extended use: an instance of vigorous group feeding, esp. by fish or other animals.
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1960 T. Lineaweaver in Sports Illustr. 22 Feb. 61/2 When sharks are in a feeding frenzy, the man who hangs too close to the surface to grimace, may lose his head - face, grimace and all.
1967 Amer. Midland Naturalist 78 40 When an isopod was injured..it was set upon by as many isopods as could grasp it with their gnathopods. The ferociously gnawing mass often rolled and tumbled about in its feeding frenzy.
1976 Audubon Sept. 12/3 Mostly, big sharks eat little sharks, but sometimes they eat big sharks, too, if they have been immobilized on a fishing line or in a net during the so-called feeding frenzies that sometimes are triggered, apparently by competition, among large groups of sharks.
1986 Gourmet June 92/3 Bonaparte's gulls were flapping in feeding frenzies.
1994 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 6 Aug. d8 A septic tank is basically a place for a big bacterial bash—an anaerobic feeding frenzy.
2001 New Straits Times (Malaysia) 15 Apr. 4 Whilst documentaries on sharks commonly show sharks going into a feeding-frenzy when there is blood and bait in the water, Great Whites do not show this behaviour.
2. figurative. An episode of frantic, voracious competition or rivalry, or ruthless exploitation of a (vulnerable) situation, esp. an occasion of apparently insatiable public or media appetite for a news story or for information about its protagonists.
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society > society and the community > dissent > competition or rivalry > [noun] > fierce or ruthless > scene of
jungle1920
feeding frenzy1972
1972 Science 7 Apr. 33/3 It would be rash to take them [sc. proposed alterations to pollution legislation] as evidence of a coherent movement to cripple the law. But what worries environmentalists..is that a feeding frenzy may develop among federal agencies once a few loopholes have been opened in the law.
1979 Business Week 25 June 130/2 A committee with responsibility for preventing or censuring departures from standards of responsible behavior [sc. in investment banking]. Without some such group..there's a feeding frenzy of sharks and the philosophy that tomorrow will take care of itself.
1989 Premiere Dec. 16/1 I read how the book's author, Kim Wozencraft, had helped manipulate the industry into what Lehman calls a ‘feeding frenzy’ for the film rights to the book.
1997 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 22 Feb. (Scene section) 4/2 Their unusual chemistry has given rise to an alleged feeding frenzy among British music fans, particularly the female ones.
2000 N. DeMille Lion's Game xxxvi. 302 There will be a media feeding frenzy for a few days, and your respective offices will get many phone calls.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1960